How to Tell a Fake Image (e.g. Sonakshi Sinha’s Bikini Image)

I came across an interesting piece of news about fake celebrity pictures (link included in the text later), which inspired me to put up this post. Objective is to list out some pointers which would help in telling a fake image apart.

We are living in the world of Photoshop and it really amazes me what all can be achieved with this amazing piece of software, and the user friendliness means that you don’t even have to be a pro to pull off stunts like the one that I am going to discuss now. If you look at the picture shown on the extreme right side, it would look just like any other run of the mill MAXIM covers.

These images have created a lot of interest in Indian media and has got the actress in question, “Sonakshi Sinha” in a spot of bother. She had to issue a statement saying that she never posed in a bikini. Rumor mills have been working hard to get this image publicized and gain some cheap popularity at the expense of this actress who is associated with the biggest hit of the year, “Dabangg“.

Now the question remains is whether this image genuine or fake! On a cursory look it might be passed on as a real image, if you look very carefully and you might start to have a few doubts, those who have seen her in the movie, may claim her face is looking a bit out of proportion when compared to her body, and this is what prompted apunkachoice.com to hunt down the original picture which was used to morph the face on this body. But there is a much stronger clue to this image being fake.

The clue to any image’s authenticity lies greatly in the lighting and the shadows resulting from the lighting! If you look at the images shown above, carefully, you can clearly make out that the primary light sources are located in front and to the left of the model, you can tell this by looking at the shadow created by her hair on the walls behind her (this could have also been manipulated). Now, lets examine the face in the image shown above closely

while the face is uniformly lit from most sides (use of reflectors and well diffused light), the right side of her face is glowing, indicating that there is a very strong light source behind her, towards her right side, in the fake images shown above you have a wall and there is no place to put a light source, therefore the images above are clearly fake, the shadows on her hair on her face also imply a light source above and behind her, but then such a light source would have destroyed the big shadow on the wall.

Below is the real image which was used to create this fake photoshopped version!

In this image you can clearly see that the bright wall on the background which is well lit by Sun light, also there is also enough room in this image to put artificial light above and behind her to create the desired soft shadow effect.

So, if you ever come across am image that is hard to believe, look at the lighted and shadowed parts and see if it all adds up, if it doesn’t as was in this case, it is clearly a fake image!